Shaianne Osterreich, professor and Department Chair in the Ithaca College Department of Economics, served as my faculty mentor. She began the project by giving me literature on growth and development models. She also gave me a foundation for understanding socialist economics vs. market economics. She also helped me understand theory concepts that I had not been exposed to in prior economics classes. After an initial meeting, I updated her weekly on my literature review, and she helped me narrow my search for a specific topic or topics to write policy recommendations for. Shaianne also introduced me to the Cornell library, which was a valuable resource throughout my research. 

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Shaianne was also integral in putting things into perspective. She was willing to challenge me, my perspectives, and the perspectives of the authors that I was reading throughout this course. She was influential in ensuring that, if I was stuck, to give me direction. In one conversation about tax regimes, Shaianne pushed me to think about progressive tax regimes as fortification for, rather than impediment against, development. It is this perspective that proved valuable throughout my research, and better informs the policy paper I am now constructing. 

 

 Like many professors at Ithaca College, Shaianne is deeply invested in the work that her students conduct. While most of the instructors I have encountered at Ithaca College are committed to their students, Shaianne has opted to take time out of her schedule to provide me the resources and support I need. Shaianne was very honest about making a conscious effort to ensure that she was not imposing herself on my research, but also ensuring that she was a guiding hand throughout the process. Our weekly updates were productive and were always in time to set me on the right track for the next week.

 

I hope that for future Scholars and their mentors, there is a joint, large meeting with both parties to discuss expectations from both Scholar and Mentor, and examples of scholar-mentor relationships that were successful in previous programs. 

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